Google announcing that it will drop #Usenet support from Google Groups gave me a reason to write a short version of the Usenet eulogy I've had in the back of my mind for the last couple of decades.
(Yes, I am not only old enough to remember Usenet but to have written about the Green Card Lawyers early on in my time at the Post. They did not appreciate the coverage, and one of them--Martha Siegel, if I recall--vaguely threatened me with a lawsuit before doing nothing.) https://www.pcmag.com/news/end-of-an-era-google-groups-to-drop-usenet-support
The sad state of my quest for a Usenet NNTP GUI client for Linux.
Pan is awesome but the binaries of my Debian Bullseye based distro, Crostini, are ancient and buggy. The Pan project distributes no .deb or other packages. Building from source requires recent versions of tools not in Bullseye.
Very few other GUI options available. Even fewer with .deb or other binaries.
rn I'm doing a lot of research on early internet fandom for my bachelor thesis and since I was born after the turn of the millennium it's making me wonder how it must have been to be a fan on the internet when Usenet and ICQ/IRC/AIM and GeoCities were still a thing. It really feels like having some kind of lost nostalgia, I've only lived to see early facebook, msn and flipnote as my early internet interactions.
If you were a fan on the internet in the late 90's / early 00's, or know someone that was, please hit me up!! I'd love to have a chat about it!!
(please boost for coverage)
Effective from 15 February 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
"Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google Groups (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content. You can continue to view and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22, 2024 on Google Groups."
> Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use #GoogleGroups (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content. You can continue to view and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22, 2024 on #Google Groups.
Not surprising news for gray-haired social-media veterans, but it still has end-of-an-era vibes: Google Groups to drop most #Usenet support on Feb. 22, keeping only a read-only archive of pre-2/22/2024 posts. https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538
The really fun part about a one-way feed from Meta Threads to #Mastodon is that when you see total disinformation from there, you can't reply or comment in any other way back to the post. It's just a one-way vomitus feed.
Will they ever permit replies back? I assume eventually, but they will want to very tightly moderate and control those, because they won't want to be inundated with CSAM and other garbage that flows forth from various Mastodon sites.
@lauren
Google is apparently disconnecting from usenet soon. Just seen as a posting from someone else:
"Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today."
#usenet still lives but on various occasions has been a source of spam (apparently currently happening). Whether losing Google will be ultimately good or bad is yet to be seen.
I think it's cool if you wanna personally block Meta-run instances, or if your server declines to federate with Threads.
I am personally interested to see how the mass-federation of Tumblr, Threads, WordPress, etc. pans out.
I also think it would be good for Meta, Google, etc. to provide (paid or ad-supported) fedi services to people who want to run their own communities but could use assistance with the technical, moderation, or compliance parts of the process.
To be clear, since I’ve described the #Fediverse as if #Usenet and a methadone clinic got married, and had a love child, I don’t trust a heroin dealer.
Today's regularly scheduled Drop is pretty redundant. By that I mean it talks about redundant ways of doing things at the CLI (and notes that, perhaps, it's a good thing in certain cases).
If you're posting a link on Mastodon, you'll probably want to add https:// to the beginning so it is clickable.
For example fedi.tips isn't clickable but https://fedi.tips is clickable.
The reason https:// is required is in case people want to include dots in words or phrases without accidentally creating links.
p.s. Techy people might like to know that many non-web link types also work on here: https://, http://, gemini://, dat://, dweb://, gopher://, ipfs:// ssb://
As usual they forgot about us 😂 #GenX or Xennials were. here first, using stuff like ICQ, MIRC, Friendster, MySpace. We were the pioneers of blogging, penning our thoughts on Diaryland and Geocities.
Also, what's this lament that there's nowhere to go? If anything we have more #SocialMedia options than ever.
Some are #Blogging more, some are in the #Fediverse#Mastodon & some are stubbornly on #X & #Facebook
We are just scattered.
@liztai GenX here, I was on #fidonet , was an active #usenet user, so all monolithic social media systems might die overnight and I couldn't care less.
Tiens, je vous propose une petite expérience : j'ai ressorti des étagères ce Guide des meilleurs sites Web, édition 2000, paru chez Microsoft Press il y a de cela 23 ans.
Je vous propose de l'explorer page par page au cours des mois qui viennent et de découvrir combien des sites listés sont encore accessibles.
D'abord parce que ça va m'occuper, ensuite par curiosité, et avoir une idée de la portion du Web qui a survécu à ses 23 dernières années.
Après les emails, ce sont les forums de discussion et autres newsgroups qui sont abordés dans le Guide des meilleurs sites.
Et la page 34 du guide aborde justement l'utilisation de #Usenet, les plateformes permettant d'y accéder, les annuaires de groupes et les autres guides autour de cette technologie.
Peu de suspens, ici tout est quasiment mort, en erreur ou squatté par des entreprises dont le travail est tout autre.
Seul le domaine Deja.com survit, redirigé vers... Google Groups.
This is annecdata - not a serious academic study. Adjust your expectations accordingly. When I first got online, the World Wide Web was still in its infancy - so CompuServe was my gateway to the Internet. I loved their well organised chat room. A couple of clicks and I could be discussing Babylon 5 with […]